Such a plug connector part comprises a housing part, a plug portion which is arranged on the housing part and intended for plug-in connection to another plug connector part, and a latching element which is arranged in a movable manner on the housing part and has a latching portion for locking to the other plug connector part. The latching element can be moved between a first, locking position for establishing locking between the plug connector part and the other plug connector part, and a second, unlocking position for unlocking the plug connector part from the other plug connector part.
Such a plug connector part in the form of a charging plug is known from DE 196 49 707 C2 for example. The charging plug comprises a latching element in the form of a locking lever which is designed to lock the charging plug to the charging socket in the case of a charging plug that is put into a charging socket. To release the locking between the charging plug and the charging socket, the locking lever can be pivoted in order to disengage a latching portion of the locking lever from an associated latch receiver of the charging socket in this manner such that the charging plug can be pulled out of the charging socket.
Other charging plugs comprising a latching element in the form of a latching lever are known for example from DE 10 2011 002 024 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 8,206,171 B2, U.S. Pat. No. 8,573,994 B2 and WO 2013/035 240 A1.
By providing such a latching element, for example in the case of a plug connector part in the form of a charging plug, reliable locking of the plug connector parts can be achieved in the case of a plug connector part plugged into another plug connector part, for example a charging socket, such that the plug connector part cannot readily be removed from the other plug connector part, or at least not without releasing the locking.
In this case, in conventional plug connector parts, the latching element in the form of the latching lever is normally pre-loaded by means of a pre-tensioned spring toward the first, locking position such that the latching element has to be moved against the spring pressure of the pre-tensioned spring in order to release the locking. Because the spring force to be overcome in order to operate the latching element can be large, it is possible in this case that, in the event of manual operation of the latching element by a user, the user attempts to remove the plug connector part from the other plug connector part before the locking provided by the latching element has been completely released, for example when the latching portion of the latching element is at least partially still located in an associated latching receiver of the other plug connector part. If the user pulls at the plug connector part in order to release the plug connector part from the other plug connector part, this can lead to a force action onto the latching portion of the latching element, which might possibly bring about damage to or even the destruction of the latching portion on the latching element.
There is therefore a need for a latching mechanism in the case of a plug connector part, which on the one hand produces reliable locking between the plug connector parts in the first, locking position but on the other hand can be moved safely and reliably out of the first, locking position into the second, unlocking position such that it can be ensured that the locking is also released when releasing the plug connector parts from one another.